An Arizona mother allegedly stashed her 17-month-old son’s body in a hotel freezer for two weeks before dialing 911 and confessing to dispatchers that she had killed him, court documents say.
Ochra Manakaja, 31, was indicted Thursday, May 22, 2026, by a Coconino County grand jury on charges of first-degree murder, second-degree murder, concealment of a dead body, and 18 counts of child abuse. The indictment came five days after Flagstaff police walked into a room at the La Quinta Inn & Suites and discovered the toddler’s body wrapped in a tote, sealed inside a clear plastic box.
The 911 call came in just after 9:30 a.m. on Saturday, May 17. According to court paperwork, Manakaja told the dispatcher her child was dead. Asked what happened, she replied, “I killed him,” and hung up.
A Hotel Room Near Interstate 40
Officers raced to the hotel near Huntington Road and Bronco Way, just south of Interstate 40 and about two miles from the city center. Inside the room, they found Manakaja and two other boys, ages seven and nine. Both older children were unharmed and removed safely. The toddler’s body, investigators noted, registered a temperature of roughly 26 degrees.
What unraveled over the next several hours, according to court documents, was a timeline that stretched back nearly a month. Manakaja told detectives she had thrown the boy into his crib on April 29 because she was frustrated by his crying and fussing. In the days that followed, she said, the toddler grew weaker. He stopped eating. He threw up. He looked pale and, in her words, was “not acting like himself.”
On May 1, the child developed a fever. Manakaja told police she didn’t take him to a hospital or call a relative because she was afraid of getting into trouble. Later that morning, after her two older sons had left for school, she found the boy lying face up on the couch, eyes closed, not breathing. She tried to rouse him with a cold rag. It didn’t work. She told investigators she believed he choked after vomiting.
A Drug Test, Then the Freezer
Manakaja remembered the date, she said, because she was due to submit a drug test that day as a condition of her probation for a prior DUI. After completing the test, she returned to the room, wrapped her son in a blanket, encased him in plastic, taped the bundle shut, and placed it in the freezer. For the next two weeks, she told the older boys that their little brother was at the hospital or the doctor’s office.
Manakaja expressed remorse repeatedly to investigators, saying the boy didn’t deserve to die, police said. She was booked into the Coconino County Jail, where her bond was set at $1 million, cash-only. She has been ordered to have no contact with her other sons.
A History of Child Safety
The toddler was born in December 2024. Shortly after his birth, the Arizona Department of Child Safety obtained a court order to remove him from what officials described as unsafe conditions. But because the family is Native American, the Havasupai tribe asserted jurisdiction and assumed custody — a step DCS confirmed can occur under federal law protecting tribal sovereignty over child welfare cases. Manakaja told police she had only recently regained custody of the boy before he died.
“The Department extends its deepest sympathies to all those affected by the tragic death of a one-year-old child,” DCS said in a statement. “Our thoughts are with the child’s loved ones and community during this difficult time.”
Manakaja was raised by both parents on the Havasupai Indian Reservation. She attended Flagstaff High School but did not graduate, and she once worked as a teacher’s aide. She has never married and had two children at the time of a previous 2020 arrest. She told investigators she first tried meth at 16 and used the drug weekly.
Her criminal history spans several years and includes disorderly conduct, assault allegations, and criminal damage cases. In 2023, she was convicted of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and DUI.
Experts Point to Layered Crises
Forensic psychologist John De La Torre, reviewing the case publicly, said Manakaja’s record points to a constellation of unaddressed problems — isolation, untreated mental illness, and substance abuse — that may have collided in the Flagstaff hotel room.
“Just looking at her history, there seems to be an indication of either some underlying severe pathology, meaning like bipolar disorder or something like that,” De La Torre said.
The status of Manakaja’s two surviving sons has not been publicly updated. She remains in custody at the Coconino County Jail awaiting arraignment on the grand jury’s indictment.